Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You From how Supports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
Speaker 1: and I'm Kristen, and today we're tackling a topic that
Speaker 1: has been requested by several of our listeners, and that
Speaker 1: is military spouses. We also want to point out that
Speaker 1: May ninth is Military Spouse Appreciation Day here in the US,
Speaker 1: so a shout out to all of our spouses out there,
Speaker 1: male and female alike. Yeah, And so, to kick things off,
Speaker 1: as we often do on the podcast, let's talk about
Speaker 1: who we are referring to when it comes to military spouses. Surprise, surprise,
Speaker 1: it is largely women. Um. A lot of these statistics
Speaker 1: are coming from the two thousand twelve Demographics Report for
Speaker 1: the Department of Defense, which is some scintillating uh bedside reading. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I must say it. It's a lot. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of percentages, many percentages, and and women
Speaker 1: make up of military spouses, right, and and military husbands
Speaker 1: don't worry, we will not leave you out. But we
Speaker 1: just wanted to throw out a few of those stats
Speaker 1: to get started. But looking at who's married in the military,
Speaker 1: fifty about fifty six percent of active duty military members
Speaker 1: are married, which is down from six And if you
Speaker 1: look at the gender split, fifty eight percent of active
Speaker 1: duty men and nearly have fort of active duty women
Speaker 1: are married. Now, when you look at inter military marriages,
Speaker 1: six point three of the Department of Defenses active duty
Speaker 1: members are in dual military marriages. Yeah, and female soldiers
Speaker 1: are a lot likelier to marry soldiers compared to male
Speaker 1: soldiers marrying other soldiers. So when it comes to ages,
Speaker 1: not so surprisingly. When you consider how young people are
Speaker 1: generally enlisted into the military, it follows that military spouses,
Speaker 1: typically wives are a bit younger as well. Um, the
Speaker 1: largest proportion of them twenty three point five percent are
Speaker 1: between twenty six and thirty years old, and then just
Speaker 1: under that eight percent are twenty five years old and younger.
Speaker 1: But you do have military spouses of all ages. It
Speaker 1: just so happens that it's a little more frontloaded. Yeah, exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: And so you know, I mentioned that we had gotten
Speaker 1: more than one request to to talk about military spouses,
Speaker 1: mostly wives, and and why is that? And you know,
Speaker 1: we did get letters from a lot of people talking
Speaker 1: about some of the issues they faced as a military spouse,
Speaker 1: but as krist and I were doing reading of our own.
Speaker 1: It is so clear that if you were a military
Speaker 1: spouse you face a lot of challenges. And a bit
Speaker 1: one which has also been in the news a lot
Speaker 1: over the past year or so is employment. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this is something from my civilian perspective I hadn't thought
Speaker 1: about at all. I assumed that military spouse probably issues
Speaker 1: of deployment, you know, just living within a military structure
Speaker 1: probably pretty hard. And we'll get into those issues. But
Speaker 1: employment is a massive one. At nine in fact of
Speaker 1: military wives in particular are either unemployed or under employed,
Speaker 1: and that was coming from a study out of the
Speaker 1: Military Officers Association of America study that was published in
Speaker 1: March two thousand fourteen, and so that represents more than
Speaker 1: six hundred thousand women. And on top of that, nearly
Speaker 1: five thousand active duty military families are food stamp eligible. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one thing um that's worth mentioning is that military spouses,
Speaker 1: military wives in particular have to deal a lot of stereotypes.
Speaker 1: And one of those stereotypes is that they are lazy,
Speaker 1: or there's somehow freeloaders, or they don't want to work
Speaker 1: with their opportunists and they just want the benefits that
Speaker 1: come along with having a spouse in the military, when
Speaker 1: the reality has a lot more to do with, like
Speaker 1: Kristen said, the fact that when you're part of a
Speaker 1: military family, you're going to move a lot, which presents
Speaker 1: so many problems, including licensing issues. For instance, more than
Speaker 1: half of active duty military spouses work in fields that
Speaker 1: require state licensing or certification, and about licensed military spouses
Speaker 1: have had to renew their license after a cross country move.
Speaker 1: And this whole licensing thing is a big deal because
Speaker 1: it is costly, and it's time consuming and often frustrating.
Speaker 1: Think about if you're a lawyer moving from state to state,
Speaker 1: you've got to take the bar how many times exactly?
Speaker 1: And for that reason, almost six of military wives who
Speaker 1: are surveyed feared that their partners active duty status would
Speaker 1: scare off potential employers who are like, oh, no, you're
Speaker 1: just gonna up and move in six months or less,
Speaker 1: so we don't want to hire you. So there are
Speaker 1: issues of employment gaps, the frequent job changes, and of course,
Speaker 1: you know all of those cross country moves that these
Speaker 1: military wives are having to deal with in their search
Speaker 1: for employment. And on top of that too, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of educational issues that are preceding this. UM.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of them who only have either
Speaker 1: high school diploma g e D or even less right
Speaker 1: and just thirty have at least some college credit uh,
Speaker 1: compared to one person who have a doctoral degree. And
Speaker 1: when you look at the military spouses who are searching
Speaker 1: for work, actively searching for work, UM, these people, when
Speaker 1: they get into jobs, endure frequent employment gaps and earn
Speaker 1: about thirty eight percent less than their civilian counterparts because
Speaker 1: they're often not able to take advantage of maybe more stable,
Speaker 1: high paying jobs where you would naturally, over the course
Speaker 1: of a few years, rise up in the ranks, get promoted,
Speaker 1: get raises, all that stuff. If you're moving, you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have that opportunity. For instance, UM, when I worked
Speaker 1: in Augusta at the newspaper, there's four gordon there, and
Speaker 1: one of the news writers was a military wife, and
Speaker 1: whenever she and her husband would move, she would get
Speaker 1: a job at the local town's newspaper. And so that's great,
Speaker 1: and that's wonderful that she has that training and has
Speaker 1: that ability to get a job at a newspaper. But
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you know, if you're moving frequently,
Speaker 1: you're not going to become the news editor, or you're
Speaker 1: not going to become you know, enter into a higher
Speaker 1: paying position. And on top of that, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're not staying in one place for a certain amount
Speaker 1: of time. Even though tools like social media can certainly
Speaker 1: help bridge this gap these days, but you can't stick
Speaker 1: around to build a professional network. That's another you know,
Speaker 1: making those kinds of face to face contacts with people
Speaker 1: in your field is also important. So that's yet another
Speaker 1: challenge that a lot of spouses face. And so the
Speaker 1: Department of Defense offers some very practical advice of hey,
Speaker 1: why don't you consider more portable careers such as news
Speaker 1: writing or marketing, teaching, nursing, you know, the types of
Speaker 1: jobs where no matter where you go, there's a good
Speaker 1: chance that people will need those skills sets. But even
Speaker 1: though that's very practical advice, the Department of Defense hasn't
Speaker 1: done necessarily the best job of going beyond just like, hey,
Speaker 1: well you know, just get out, get out there can
Speaker 1: good luck, right, Yeah, the Department of Defense would tell
Speaker 1: you that their career advancement programs are great and a
Speaker 1: wonderful resource. And I'm sure they are. However, um, more
Speaker 1: than forty of military spouses report that they are either
Speaker 1: dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with these d O D sponsored
Speaker 1: employee assistance programs, while only twelve percent said the program's
Speaker 1: actually helped them find a job. And like one of
Speaker 1: the one of the articles we read, I think it
Speaker 1: was from ABC News was talking to a military wife
Speaker 1: who was an engineer, So you would think, like, oh, man, engineer,
Speaker 1: you can get a great job. Well, you know, if
Speaker 1: you moved to a small town. Not necessarily, And we
Speaker 1: should mention though that as of when we're recording this podcast. Uh,
Speaker 1: the White House just announced that First Lady Michelle Obama
Speaker 1: and her initiative that she's been leading called Joining Forces,
Speaker 1: is launching a new website to help specifically veterans and
Speaker 1: military spouses with finding jobs setting up resumes. It sounds
Speaker 1: sort of like almost like a monster dot com for
Speaker 1: military folks. So here's hoping that that can be helpful.
Speaker 1: So hopefully that will perhaps improve these numbers somewhat. Yeah. Well, Um,
Speaker 1: a study in human performance back into thousand seven looked
Speaker 1: at some of the factors that tie into what they
Speaker 1: call job search self efficacy, basically your ability to go
Speaker 1: out and get yourself a job. And they found that,
Speaker 1: you know, there's some things that are positively related to
Speaker 1: to your your success rate, and that's things like current
Speaker 1: employment status, education level, financial resources, the kind of stuff
Speaker 1: that you would typically think of what's negatively related to
Speaker 1: military spouses being able to find work um and I
Speaker 1: feel like this is true for a lot of families,
Speaker 1: not just military families, but it's that whole family responsibility variable,
Speaker 1: for example, the number of children you have, the financial
Speaker 1: resources at your disposal. The big one is childcare conflict.
Speaker 1: You know, can I work but also find someone to
Speaker 1: take care of my kids? But if we move out
Speaker 1: of the employment sphere and into more of the home front,
Speaker 1: one of the one of the issues that comes up
Speaker 1: for military spouses is the issue of infidelity, especially when
Speaker 1: we're dealing with someone who has an active duty spouse
Speaker 1: who might be deployed for twelve months at a time.
Speaker 1: What happens when you are living separately like that. I
Speaker 1: mean when when the General Patreus sex scandal slash affair
Speaker 1: splashed across all of the headlines, you know that it's
Speaker 1: sort of the the it's sort of embodied this stereotype
Speaker 1: of the infidelity happening within military couples. Yeah, it really
Speaker 1: is a huge stereotype. And um, military spouse Alison buck
Speaker 1: Holtz talked to uh, some fellow military spouses for Slate
Speaker 1: back in November, and this is right after the whole
Speaker 1: Petraeus affair hit the fan. Uh. Everybody was talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, loyalty both to your country and your military
Speaker 1: as well as to your spouse. Um. And anyway, Buckles
Speaker 1: was saying that most military spouses I've heard from say
Speaker 1: plainly marriage is hard, regardless of the circumstances, but that
Speaker 1: the military environment seems to exacerbate the normal tensions that
Speaker 1: couples face, you know, whether that's money, whether that's children,
Speaker 1: or whether that's as she says, extracurricular sexual activities. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she was talking to about how a lot of
Speaker 1: the military spouses were reticent to talk specifically about that affair,
Speaker 1: not so much out of loyalty to the military, but
Speaker 1: loyalty specifically to petray Us his wife, because once you
Speaker 1: get into you know, if you're living on a base
Speaker 1: and you know you're these women are your primary social outlet,
Speaker 1: and you do form the the spouses seem to form
Speaker 1: loyalty is just among themselves, like within their civilian ranks.
Speaker 1: I thought that was kind of interesting to see. Um.
Speaker 1: But on on a related note, former military spouse Kate Sukal,
Speaker 1: who wrote a book Dirty Minds, How Our Brains Influenced love,
Speaker 1: sex and Relationships, talked about this concept called home team
Speaker 1: versus away team, which she encountered while she was living
Speaker 1: on a base in Germany. So it's basically like, Okay,
Speaker 1: while your husband's living at home, then that's the home team.
Speaker 1: And then when he when he goes away, then he
Speaker 1: goes to his other secret family. Yeah, basically like he
Speaker 1: might have. It could be just women that he has
Speaker 1: sex with or whatever, but it could also be that
Speaker 1: he has an entire yeah, like family overseas somewhere. But
Speaker 1: one thing that wasn't brought up in any of these
Speaker 1: articles I will say is there's no comparison of in
Speaker 1: like rates of infidelity among military couples versus rates of
Speaker 1: infidelity among couples wherein there's a lot of business travel,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Or musician who's touring a
Speaker 1: lot or whatever. It might be couples who are separated
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, I'm sure the big influencing factor here
Speaker 1: is not the military, but of a travel whatever that
Speaker 1: travel is, whether it is a long business trip or
Speaker 1: whether it is a deployment, right or I mean, like
Speaker 1: if you are deployed and you're in the military, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure it could be easy in a way to
Speaker 1: start a relationship with someone who was also in the military,
Speaker 1: who you know, might might be experiencing the same kind
Speaker 1: of stress, possibly being shot at, possibly you know, knowing
Speaker 1: secrets that you wouldn't be able to go home and
Speaker 1: share with your spouse, right Well, Suchal says that it's
Speaker 1: that whole culture of secrecy that makes it easier for
Speaker 1: people to keep their friends infidelity a secret. So you know,
Speaker 1: if you're buddy knows that you're cheating on your wife
Speaker 1: or whatever, um, you know, he's going to protect that knowledge.
Speaker 1: Well and on. I don't want to stay on a
Speaker 1: similar note because it's definitely not uh, it's definitely more
Speaker 1: serious than just basic infidelity. But one thing I was
Speaker 1: curious about when when reading about military spouses was how
Speaker 1: all of these conversations that have been going on about
Speaker 1: the issue of sexual assault within the military, how that
Speaker 1: relates to the issues that military spouses are facing. Because
Speaker 1: the military spouses are hearing I'm sure about these issues
Speaker 1: of sexual assault within the military, then it has the
Speaker 1: ven diagram at some point has to overlap. Well. Coming
Speaker 1: from the Department of Defense itself, Um, they do say
Speaker 1: that they want to expand legal assistance for military spouses
Speaker 1: and adult military dependence to be able to file confidential
Speaker 1: reports and receive the services of a victim advocate and
Speaker 1: a sexual assault response coordinator if and when abuse happens
Speaker 1: in the home. Yeah, and just to clarify, when I
Speaker 1: said those VENN diagrams overlap, I meant more in terms
Speaker 1: of conversation conversations about the issue of sexual assault and
Speaker 1: what to do about that happening among military spouses. I
Speaker 1: was not going to imply that eventually military spouses will
Speaker 1: abuse in one way or another their civilian spouses. But
Speaker 1: in instances when that does happen, as in the case
Speaker 1: of a woman named Bobby Hearn who is now divorced
Speaker 1: from a marine, when those instances do happen, the military
Speaker 1: also has been slow to respond, if at all, when
Speaker 1: military wives have you know, reported issues of spousal abuse
Speaker 1: or even spousal rape. Yeah, because there's that it's kind
Speaker 1: of you know, closing closing ranks. It's it's kind of
Speaker 1: that that desire to protect protect our own, you know.
Speaker 1: There there's there's kind of anecdotally there's attitudes of like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you should just do what's best for
Speaker 1: your military husband, um and not report this. And so
Speaker 1: there is a huge push to be able to protect
Speaker 1: the civilian spouses of military members. Yeah, and it's not
Speaker 1: only this issue of not reporting cases of sexual assault
Speaker 1: or abuse, but if in one that does happen, similar
Speaker 1: to sexual assault cases that happen within military ranks just
Speaker 1: being shut down, just not being investigated. And you know,
Speaker 1: they're all these initiatives now largely being led by a
Speaker 1: Senator Kirsten gilla Brand and Barbara Boxer to try to
Speaker 1: reform this and actually get have some kind of advocacy
Speaker 1: for sexual assault victims that aren't people within their ranks. UM.
Speaker 1: So they're trying to extend that to to civilian spouses.
Speaker 1: And I mentioned Bobby Harran because she's sort of becoming
Speaker 1: like a public face in a way of the civilian
Speaker 1: side of the sexual assault issue within the military, because
Speaker 1: you know, if it's happening. You know, it's not just
Speaker 1: issues that are happening with em barracks, but also perhaps
Speaker 1: within you know, people's homes on the base. And because
Speaker 1: she's working with Gilla Brand to right, right, she's working
Speaker 1: with Jilla Brand and Barbara Boxer. And she had been
Speaker 1: repeatedly abused, allegedly and raped by her now ex husband,
Speaker 1: and the Army did nothing, or i should say the
Speaker 1: Marines because he was a marine. It did really nothing
Speaker 1: to pursue the case or to separate the husband from
Speaker 1: heron And it wasn't until the senators got involved that
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Oh, now the Marines are starting
Speaker 1: to pay attention, right, And it's because of things like
Speaker 1: this um that there was an article over on spouse
Speaker 1: buzz dot com talking about how military families do need
Speaker 1: to work together to support service members and the military,
Speaker 1: but they write, we also need to give military initiatives
Speaker 1: a chance to evolve and adapt and to speak up
Speaker 1: when we see something awry. We need to encourage our
Speaker 1: spouses to do the same too, regardless of the perceived consequences.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit more than about the
Speaker 1: psychological effects of living in these environments, because as you
Speaker 1: can imagine, living ah a military life or living a
Speaker 1: life with a military spouse is a bit different than
Speaker 1: just a run of the mill civilian life. And we'll
Speaker 1: get into those issues when we come right back from
Speaker 1: a quick break and meal back to the show. So
Speaker 1: Kristen was just introducing the issue of the psychological and
Speaker 1: mental health effects that military spouses encounter. And one study
Speaker 1: looking at this area was back from two thousand six
Speaker 1: in the journal Armed Forces and Society UM looking at
Speaker 1: four military lifestyle demands which were risk of service member
Speaker 1: injury or death, frequent relocations, periodic separations, and foreign residents,
Speaker 1: and the relationships of those for lifestyle demands to the
Speaker 1: four factors of psychological well being, physical well being, satisfaction
Speaker 1: with the army, and marital satisfaction. They found that the
Speaker 1: impact of separations, for instance, was negatively related to all
Speaker 1: four satisfaction areas. So it's that separation that really has
Speaker 1: a negative mental and emotional impact on military spouses, but
Speaker 1: the impact of moving was negatively related to satisfaction with
Speaker 1: the army, and fear for soldier safety was negatively related
Speaker 1: to physical well being. And closing out those four military
Speaker 1: lifestyle demands foreign residents was negatively related to physical and
Speaker 1: psychological well being. So these are things that military spouses,
Speaker 1: their service member spouses, and also their primary care physicians
Speaker 1: need to keep in mind during these tumultuous times of
Speaker 1: moving and stuff. Yeah, and one study finding that really
Speaker 1: surprised me came out of the journal Military Medicine UM
Speaker 1: in two thousand eight, and it found that military spouses
Speaker 1: present with mental health concerns in including suicide, at the
Speaker 1: same rate as service members. And the stigma that we
Speaker 1: often hear about around mental health within the military, reluctance
Speaker 1: to um come forward if you are dealing with issues
Speaker 1: of anxiety depression PTSD. That stigma also extends, according to
Speaker 1: the American Psychiatric Association, to military spouses as well, with
Speaker 1: sixty six reporting that they fear seeking assistance would harm
Speaker 1: the military career of their spouse. They think that if
Speaker 1: they come forward and say I am horribly depressed, this
Speaker 1: is terrible military life is killing me from the inside out,
Speaker 1: that it will then, you know, somehow have a harmful
Speaker 1: effect on what their spous their spouses rank. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: surprised me too. So you're not only dealing with the
Speaker 1: isolation of you know, your spouse being overseas maybe, or
Speaker 1: or being away, but you're also dealing with that isolation
Speaker 1: of feeling like you can't reach out UM and Similarly,
Speaker 1: the New England Journal of Medicine and found that a
Speaker 1: lot of military spouses suffer what they call secondary traumatic
Speaker 1: stress UM. Basically that when they analyze the records of
Speaker 1: about two hundred and fifty thousand spouses of US active
Speaker 1: duty soldiers from two thousand three to two thousand six,
Speaker 1: they found that multiple or prolonged deployments of service members
Speaker 1: led to a greater risk of depressive anxiety, sleep and
Speaker 1: acute stress reaction and adjustment disorders among those service members spouses.
Speaker 1: And while spouses of service members who were deployed for
Speaker 1: up to eleven months presented more frequently at military health
Speaker 1: clinics UM and received mental health diagnoses at a higher
Speaker 1: rate than spouses of military service members who were not deployed,
Speaker 1: it's the spouses of service members who were deployed for
Speaker 1: twelve months or longer who received the most mental health diagnoses,
Speaker 1: which were at a rate of twenty higher than those
Speaker 1: without a deployed spouse. See it's interesting to see the
Speaker 1: results of these studies that are conducted in depend didn't
Speaker 1: from the military because there's this massive Department of Defense report,
Speaker 1: the one that we sided the fantastic bedside reading that
Speaker 1: we sided at the top of the podcast. When you
Speaker 1: look into what the d o D reports, it was
Speaker 1: actually the exact opposite in terms of deployment. They reported
Speaker 1: that the longer the deployment was correlated with the higher
Speaker 1: predictability of the military couple staying together, which I thought
Speaker 1: would have been the exact opposite. But they also sort
Speaker 1: of under reported unemployment among military spouses. It seems like
Speaker 1: all of the most negative aspects or underplay a little bit.
Speaker 1: It would well that. I mean that ties into things
Speaker 1: that we've talked about on the podcast before as far
Speaker 1: as like how accurate is self reporting and how accurate
Speaker 1: is self reporting when the person you're self reporting too
Speaker 1: is your employer, right yeah, or your spouses employer right um.
Speaker 1: But just to give a little context to deployment, to
Speaker 1: to find out how many people are affected by this
Speaker 1: of military spouses are separated from soldiers for twelve months
Speaker 1: or longer, largely due to deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: and even when the soldier might come home and you expect, Oh,
Speaker 1: then that's great, right, everything's totally fine. Actually, that readjustment
Speaker 1: period of being home can be even more challenging than
Speaker 1: the time of part because, as you can imagine, hopping
Speaker 1: right back from a war zone back home is not
Speaker 1: so smooth, as we have seen from the escalating rates
Speaker 1: of suicidality alcohol abuse PTSD among soldiers returning back to
Speaker 1: the home front. In terms of kids, the Department of
Speaker 1: Defense reports that most of them cope fine, which again
Speaker 1: grain of salt a little bit, because this is coming
Speaker 1: from the Department of Defense. I can't imagine the US
Speaker 1: military be like, the kids are suffering, what are we
Speaker 1: gonna do, Let's bring everyone home. Oh wait, no, we
Speaker 1: can't do that. But they did acknowledge that among the
Speaker 1: oldest kids, apparently a tenth to a five reported serious
Speaker 1: coping problems that you see with you know, behavioral issues,
Speaker 1: problems with grades in school, etcetera. Yeah, well, I mean
Speaker 1: that's a lot of emotional turmoil. Oh absolutely, I mean
Speaker 1: I remember when my oldest brother was deployed to Iraq
Speaker 1: the first time around for yie old Persian Gulf War
Speaker 1: way back when, and even though the casualties for and
Speaker 1: a length of that war were it was very small,
Speaker 1: but still just like the stress level in our household
Speaker 1: was massive, where my mother was always on edge. Absolutely well,
Speaker 1: military husbands, we have not forgotten about you, although according
Speaker 1: to Career Builder, you're feeling pretty invisible at the moment.
Speaker 1: An article back in talked to male military spouses UM
Speaker 1: who basically were saying that they feel really alienated basically
Speaker 1: from the female dominated spouses club sometimes just called wives clubs,
Speaker 1: and they struggle to find a community that knows what
Speaker 1: they're going through. UM. A lot of guys said, you know,
Speaker 1: I was handed a spouse manual that was pink, or
Speaker 1: all the articles out there are telling women what kind
Speaker 1: of high heels to wear for a homecoming celebration. That
Speaker 1: doesn't really help me. Um. There's also the issue of
Speaker 1: that whole gender role reversal, that it's it's the warrior
Speaker 1: wife going off shooting the big guns and the husbands
Speaker 1: staying at home changing the diapers, and the idea that
Speaker 1: that stay at home dad nows is so hard to
Speaker 1: adjust to, and perhaps because of those complications of the
Speaker 1: gender identity of maybe feeling even more isolated as sometimes
Speaker 1: lone male military spouse. The rates of divorce for uh,
Speaker 1: female soldiers married to civilian male civilians is much higher
Speaker 1: than when you flip it for the more traditional uh
Speaker 1: you know, male military male soldier married to civilian wife.
Speaker 1: In fact, the divorce rate from female military personnel is
Speaker 1: more than twice as high um. And they think that
Speaker 1: it might be because of the gender issues, but also
Speaker 1: because women are likelier to marry someone else in the military,
Speaker 1: and when it comes to civilian husbands, they're also less
Speaker 1: likely to be employed than military wives, So that probably
Speaker 1: only compounds all of those stressors that we've been talking
Speaker 1: about even more so. Yeah, as Scott Stanley put it,
Speaker 1: he's a military family expert and a professor at the
Speaker 1: University of Denver. Um, people don't even know or understand
Speaker 1: the male role when it's the wife who's deployed. And
Speaker 1: he said that a lot of these men are sort
Speaker 1: of swimming in a whole new part of the pool
Speaker 1: without really knowing exactly where to go or what to do,
Speaker 1: or what sort of support to seek. Because I mean,
Speaker 1: if you just google military wives, there are a ton
Speaker 1: of websites there's military spouse, There's like all this stuff
Speaker 1: out there for wives to help you not spend too
Speaker 1: much money at the commissary, to help you connect with
Speaker 1: other military wives. But there's really not a whole lot
Speaker 1: of stuff out there for dudes. Yeah, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: even one military husband, in fact, I don't have his
Speaker 1: name in front of me recently started a website called
Speaker 1: Macho Spouse specifically to help out other military husbands in
Speaker 1: his shoes because he was like, I don't you know
Speaker 1: all this pink stuff and and ladies parties, I don't
Speaker 1: know what to do and and even too. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are similar issues that come up in conversations with
Speaker 1: stay at home dads, where if you are taking care
Speaker 1: of the kids and you want to play date, it's
Speaker 1: not always so easy to reach out to military wives
Speaker 1: because then, um, you know, it might send the wrong
Speaker 1: message or something. So yeah, so there, I think there
Speaker 1: are more re sources now. It's sort of catching up
Speaker 1: to the rising role of women in the military. But
Speaker 1: speaking of resources catching up to different types of military families,
Speaker 1: one thing we also wanted to look into was how
Speaker 1: the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell not so long
Speaker 1: ago and the more recent repeal of the Defensive Marriage
Speaker 1: Act has impacted LGBT couples in the military, whether or
Speaker 1: not gay and lesbian military spouses are receiving all the
Speaker 1: same kinds of benefits as their straight civilian counterparts. Yes.
Speaker 1: Steven Peters, who's the president of the American Military Partner Association,
Speaker 1: wade about this for Huffington's post, and he talks about
Speaker 1: how you know, it's it's great that Don't Ask, Don't
Speaker 1: Tell was repealed, but was questioning whether, like Kristen said,
Speaker 1: are are the benefits actually catching up to the legislation
Speaker 1: um because those gay military families aren't always given the
Speaker 1: same support and benefits that their straight counterparts are getting.
Speaker 1: But it's worth pointing out that Peters was writing before
Speaker 1: the Defensive Marriage Act was repealed. Yeah, with the repeal
Speaker 1: of DOMA, that eliminated the federal distinction between head reseexual
Speaker 1: couples and same sex couples. And so now the official
Speaker 1: line in the US military is that no matter what
Speaker 1: your coupling looks like, married couples in the military will
Speaker 1: all receive the same access to the subsidized housing child
Speaker 1: care tri care, which is the military's healthcare. And before this,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a giant boon to LGBT families
Speaker 1: in the military, because before this you weren't guaranteed if
Speaker 1: you were a military spouse that you would be able
Speaker 1: to live on base with your spouse. You would not
Speaker 1: receive try care, you would not receive help with childcare,
Speaker 1: and all of these, you know, very important benefits that
Speaker 1: military families receive and should receive for you know, the
Speaker 1: service that they're offering UM and so DOMA has been
Speaker 1: huge to kind of circle, like I guess, sort of
Speaker 1: closed the gap with don't ask, don't tell, actually enacted,
Speaker 1: you know, and give them the benefits they were missing
Speaker 1: out on. Although there have been issues, particularly within the
Speaker 1: National Guard. This was reported on recently in The New
Speaker 1: York Times about how on a state by state basis,
Speaker 1: particularly ones where gay marriage is not legal, there have
Speaker 1: been issues within the National Guard of issuing ID cards
Speaker 1: to gay military spouses. Right this was an article in
Speaker 1: The New York Times that pointed out that nine states Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia said that the issuing
Speaker 1: of I D cards violated their state constitutions and would
Speaker 1: not provide had them at National Guard facilities which fall
Speaker 1: under state control. Oh. But in addition to these kinds
Speaker 1: of efforts to sort of rectify the situations for l
Speaker 1: GPT military families that have only until recently been you know,
Speaker 1: receiving unequal benefits, if any benefits at all. Um, there
Speaker 1: are several efforts to support military families, particularly in a
Speaker 1: time where the military has endured a lot of budget
Speaker 1: cuts which has trickled down to military families. Mean, we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier that five thousand active duty families are food
Speaker 1: stamp eligible. Um. And if you are in a military family,
Speaker 1: even though you might receive a lot of government benefits,
Speaker 1: that does not mean that you probably aren't living on
Speaker 1: a pretty tight budget. Right. And at the top of
Speaker 1: the podcast, Kristen mentioned Joining Forces, which is that national
Speaker 1: initiative lad by the First Lady and Jill Biden Uh
Speaker 1: to engage society basically to help our service members and
Speaker 1: their families get a leg up, basically give them the
Speaker 1: opportunities and the support that they have earned. So they
Speaker 1: have initiatives that involve education, employment, and wellness. Their goals
Speaker 1: involve bringing attention to the unique needs of America's military families,
Speaker 1: but also as they say, UH, to inspire, educate, and
Speaker 1: spark action from all sectors of society to ensure that
Speaker 1: veterans and military families have the opportunities, resources and support
Speaker 1: that they have earned. I mean, and that sounds fantastic
Speaker 1: for sure, and for I mean, for commissioned officers in
Speaker 1: the military, the situation is a lot better. But you
Speaker 1: have to remember too that these days, a lot of
Speaker 1: times the soldiers who are enlisting typically come from lower
Speaker 1: social and economic areas. They are typically not as educated,
Speaker 1: they don't have as many resources walking in to this
Speaker 1: as someone who is perhaps going straight into college, going
Speaker 1: to go on that more traditional career path and so um.
Speaker 1: And that it trickles down to, you know, their spouses
Speaker 1: into their families. Mean, a lot of these UH couples
Speaker 1: also have children they're caring for as well, and so
Speaker 1: these kinds of resources are are very important to them.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're even base wide baby showers that organizations
Speaker 1: will host just to make sure that military wives have
Speaker 1: enough diapers and onesies and all these things, because it's
Speaker 1: not easy living on a military paycheck at all. Absolutely um.
Speaker 1: And you know, one thing we were discussing, UH regarding
Speaker 1: the whole employment issue was the fact that when you're moving,
Speaker 1: it's hard to develop those professional networks that that can
Speaker 1: help you get a leg up. Well, a judge who
Speaker 1: is a military spouse started the Military Spouse j D
Speaker 1: network as a basically support and professional network for lawyers
Speaker 1: who are trying to maintain legal careers while supporting military spouses.
Speaker 1: So it's not only a support network in terms of like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's go get a drink and hang out and be friends,
Speaker 1: it's also literally like a networking uh support group to
Speaker 1: help you get a job when you move. And looking
Speaker 1: from a more general perspective, military dot com slash spouse
Speaker 1: has an entire checklist and overview about all the concerns, responsibilities,
Speaker 1: services and resources that surround military families, particularly spouses and
Speaker 1: Military family dot org how scholarship resources and Kristen mentioned
Speaker 1: Macho spouse earlier the web. The web address for that
Speaker 1: is male mill spouse dot org. If you are a
Speaker 1: military husband wanting to hang out and play golf with
Speaker 1: some buddies, Yeah, I mean, I think if there's one
Speaker 1: big takeaway from this episode, it's that I think, on
Speaker 1: the over the course of stuff, I'm never told you
Speaker 1: We've talked about all different kinds of families and family
Speaker 1: dynamics and this is this is just another one of them.
Speaker 1: And I think from the outside looking in, you might
Speaker 1: not initially be aware of all of the myriad issues
Speaker 1: that are happening, you know, within these military homes. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine relationships, Caroline, are challenging enough. I just
Speaker 1: you know, to throw the military into that, to throw
Speaker 1: a war into that, to throw just probably living in
Speaker 1: a more remote area on a fort somewhere, I can
Speaker 1: only imagine how challenging that has to be and how
Speaker 1: dedicated you have to be to that lifestyle, to your partner,
Speaker 1: to your family to make it work. So I cannot
Speaker 1: wait to hear from our military spouses out there. What
Speaker 1: issues are you dealing with? You know? Does any of
Speaker 1: the stuff that we talked about ring true? Are you
Speaker 1: an exception to any of these rules? Yeah? And if
Speaker 1: there are any uh LGBT military spouses listening, um who
Speaker 1: can fill us in on whether or not your needs
Speaker 1: are truly now being met as they should be under
Speaker 1: the letter of the law post don't ask, don't tell, DMA.
Speaker 1: We also would love to hear from you, mom, stuff
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot Com is where you can email us
Speaker 1: or you can tweet us at mom Stuff Podcasts, and
Speaker 1: you can also message us on Facebook as well. And
Speaker 1: we've got a couple of messages to share with you
Speaker 1: right now. So we've been hearing a lot about our
Speaker 1: two parter on women in video games, and we've got
Speaker 1: a couple of those messages right now. This one comes
Speaker 1: from Natalie, subject line Lady gamers and the Fallout series.
Speaker 1: She writes, after listening to part two of Women in
Speaker 1: Video Games, I was genuinely surprised you didn't touch upon
Speaker 1: the Fallout series. My man friend and actually turned me
Speaker 1: onto the game as he was a huge fan of
Speaker 1: the PC games as a child. When I started playing
Speaker 1: Fallout three and subsequently Fallout three New Vegas, one of
Speaker 1: the most exciting aspects of the games was that I
Speaker 1: got to customize my avatar. I could play as male
Speaker 1: or female, and could also choose my race for ethnicity.
Speaker 1: Being a Hispanic woman, nothing was more exciting than seeing
Speaker 1: my clearly Latina avatar kicking butt on screen. The gamemakers
Speaker 1: went even farther when it came to gender equality, especially
Speaker 1: in New Vegas. There are various storylines in which you
Speaker 1: interact with prostitutes and exotic dancers. They're always both male
Speaker 1: and female characters in these lines of works. I had
Speaker 1: never before seen a digital magic Mike doing his thing
Speaker 1: until playing Fallout. There are also plenty of depictions of
Speaker 1: women in power, female bosses, and women of military rank.
Speaker 1: There's even a lesbian couple the protagonist interacts with. To
Speaker 1: top it off, the villains in New Vegas are the
Speaker 1: only misogynists I can remember in either of the two games.
Speaker 1: As you can imagine, the series quickly became one of
Speaker 1: my favorites. Not only are the games well made, but
Speaker 1: the storylines are compelling and the action is pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: If you get a chance, I would definitely suggest playing
Speaker 1: this series, So thanks for the recommendation. Natalie. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: Lindsay has a letter that makes me want to do
Speaker 1: a Hulk smash um. She writes them to say I
Speaker 1: wanted to offer a personal story about being a woman
Speaker 1: who loves her video games. For me, the sexism I've
Speaker 1: experienced comes from those outside of the activity rather than
Speaker 1: within it. My most recent example was when I was
Speaker 1: serving a couple and happened to mention that I love
Speaker 1: to spend my sundays eating pizza, watching football, and playing Madden.
Speaker 1: The man of the couple and I had a brief,
Speaker 1: enthusiastic conversation about video games and football, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: the boys must love you. I laughed and began to
Speaker 1: walk away, only to hear him lean into his girlfriend
Speaker 1: and say, that's the kind of woman you want to
Speaker 1: hook up with, not the kind you want to marry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and to that, I say, lindsay, it's probably because you're adorable,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to for his girlfriend in case she
Speaker 1: was jealous about your exchange about video games. But anyway,
Speaker 1: she says. I consider myself fairly feminine. I love fashion,
Speaker 1: my makeup, and baking, but I also love video games,
Speaker 1: comic books, and I'm a martial arts instructor and competitor.
Speaker 1: People often get hung up on the more masculine activities
Speaker 1: I enjoy, making comments to some effect that I am
Speaker 1: less suitable for a long term relationship because of them.
Speaker 1: The fact that I'm a black belt received similar reactions.
Speaker 1: I've had men who were hitting on me physically move
Speaker 1: away when I mentioned what I do. I've also had
Speaker 1: men and women ask me if it is hard for
Speaker 1: me to find a guy. The assumption is a man
Speaker 1: would not want to be with me because I could
Speaker 1: beat him up again. Overall, I find little sexism within
Speaker 1: the activities I participate in that are traditionally more masculine,
Speaker 1: and far more judgment outside of them. The worst part
Speaker 1: is that the assumptions aren't about me as an individual,
Speaker 1: but about my value as someone's future wife. So I'm
Speaker 1: sorry you have to deal with that, Lindsay, but thank
Speaker 1: you for writing in, and thanks again to everyone who's
Speaker 1: written into us. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
Speaker 1: where you can email us and if you want links
Speaker 1: to all of our social media presences, every single one
Speaker 1: of our podcast, blogs and videos, there's one place to go,
Speaker 1: and it's Stuff Mom Never Told You dot com. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com